Where Balls Go to Die… and other photographic adventures

Today was a great day because it involved photographic adventures, good coffee, volleyball and the start of the NFL’s regular season!

My dad was in town because he had to pick my mom up at the airport (she was visiting family in Holland – lucky!), so we decided to make a day out of it and hang out. And when I say hang out I mean walk around scrapyards and old shipyards with our cameras and take photos of all sorts of obscure items. That’s our idea of fun!

It was my dad who taught me how to really LOOK.

One of his famous lines is that there is a photo in eveything.

It is fun to walk around and give yourself little assignments. For example, tell yourself that you are going to take pictures of colour – then your eye will look for it and you will find all sorts of cool photos.

Other assignments could be to focus on texture, or patterns, or lines, or extreme close ups.

Or do a 360 of something. To do this you choose an object (like this bike for example) and take photos of it from all angles.

From the top, from the side, from behind, from the bottom, etc.

These little assignments will teach your eye to find a photo in everything!

Yes, we are those weird people who take pictures of random things. Or the people who lie on their backs to get a better shot of something. Here’s dad snapping away:

This whole area was full of scrapyard type items. You know the usual suspects: rusty old chains, fraying ropes, dead tires, piles of stones… that kinda stuff.

Ah, well, and then there were the dead balls. I am not sure what the deal is, but as we were wandering around we found countless old and broken balls. It’s not like it is right next to any sport fields or anything so I am still very puzzled about the whole scenario…